


Jail-Crow

by maedron



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: "translation", Epic Poetry, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 08:31:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maedron/pseuds/maedron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fëanor tells Melkor to get off his lawn.  </p>
<p>(A scene from the Noldolantë of Maglor, in "free verse" "translation" from the original Quenya.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jail-Crow

**Author's Note:**

> This is my conception of an excerpt from the Noldolantë, done (sort of) in the style of a free-translated Homeric epic, with major liberties taken. It features Fëanor and Melkor at the gate of Formenos. Maglor’s PoV, though it’s marginal. (Cross-posted at SWG + FF.net).

_‘Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!’_  
\- Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter 7 

\---- 

In fair guise came he now to the gates, at the gloaming-time of  
Telperion, and called the jewel-wright’s name. Fëanáro,  
there in his forge, our far-eyed father, perceived his dark intent  
though imperfectly. He rose in wrath, leaving his bench  
and new-pressed swords, to stay the fiend who now spread blight  
among his rhododendrons. “Blackheart,” he cried,  
“get off my lawn. What you hope to gain by loitering I cannot say.  
Formenos I close to all, save my father, my sons, my lady wife,  
certain of our kin who do not offend. And you, you of all  
who walk freely amidst the design of our creator, you I hate  
unceasingly. Leave. That perfume on your wrists masks  
a most unwelcome scent.” 

 

The dark one laughed gently, raising the pall of shadow-matter  
in the form of thin white hands. “Curufinwë! I bear no malice  
to the gates of your great stronghold. Will you not  
acknowledge our strange kinship? Surely when the world  
was made, when fire splintered, of the flames that rushed  
to embody yours-truly, some must have circled  
the later-coming spirit, around the germ of Fëanáro. I know  
how it is, being an autodidact, suspecting your strength  
to smash the design – you knew from the beginning, when  
you burned up in your mother’s body, breaking her spirit  
to fold into your own, the hungry furnace. A fine  
business model! The Silmarils turned out nicely.  
Though they don’t seem to get much press, not these days.  
How fares their radiance, secreted away in some  
uncrackable safe of your making, wreathed in cold chains?  
Of late you seem to favor iron, as a medium, over gems.” 

 

The fiend had come to stoke the flames. So Fëanáro steeled.  
“And your presence unwanted, here on my doorstep,  
proves metalworking just. The time may come when I must  
craft anew the shackles Aulë forged, that manacled you  
in the everlasting Void. Were that you writhed there still.”  
Our father held the gate, his words sharp and hard  
as diamond-blade. 

 

The god lowered that falsely handsome brow, leveling  
a gaze fickle as greasefire to meet the dark-glinting eyes  
of Fëanáro. “Strange to speak of shackles, jewel-smith, for last I heard,  
you are under house-arrest. And doubly so! For even as  
your dear half-brother holds the happy city, Tirion on the hill,  
in your father’s place, while you and your horde  
are holed up banished, out of the sights of gentle society,  
the whole blessed continent is your prison. This I know  
you perceive, in that spit-hot heart of yours. You, your brave  
young sons, all your people, tethered to this precious  
pleasure-garden, your forefathers dragged here  
unwitting, when they barely knew the world, when the great  
dark hunter took them, and they followed dumbly,  
afeared of sudden shudderings, moving shadows. To this day  
the Valar herd you, like so many sacred cows. And you,  
the greatest of the lot, are deemed delinquent, in the eyes  
of the dour lord of death – it’s a pity, he’s so terribly inflexible  
about his proclamations.” 

 

Like a dark braid his speech twisted. Our father shook,  
staying the wrath that clenched at mind, heart, hands – useless  
they were, against he who warped the theme of God  
before the world’s beginning. “When I left the hill  
of Túna it was of my own accord, unheedful of the feigned pardon  
of my father’s second son. So did my father, my seven boys,  
all willingly. The command of Mandos we heed.  
Yet the choice is our own, to live apart, far from the  
intrigue of court, and the circles that you, they say,  
have come to infiltrate, currying favor from  
the petty lords, the hobbyist jewelers, all eager for  
your snake-oil counsel. Your poison-tipped mockery  
may pollute my halls, but it does not cloud my head.  
You will not breach the mind or walls of Fëanáro.” 

 

The dark visitor spoke again. “Your pardon, prince.  
Verily, I had to no aim to hurt you pride. For you see,  
I only wish to endorse your revolution! And forgive me  
if I’m being sentimental, but you must it admit, it bears  
some semblance to my own – in mechanics, if not  
in ambition. Forgive me, for I was only musing  
that I might assist in some trifling manner – perhaps  
transoceanic passage? For am I not Vala, too, akin to them  
who now trammel your powers? You say you are free,  
fire-spirit, here in the foothills, and content to be  
working your craft obscurely, pushed to the margins  
of this narrow land. Yet the world is wide.  
Rightfully would you rule over a wide swath of it,  
building great halls, mining the earth for  
material new and strange. Yea, your art is great,  
but there would it be perfected, out from under  
the thumbprint of the gods. You it would be  
who would carry the light of the Trees  
to the lands across, living in your jewels – why,  
you’d have it all, son of Finwë. Just think of me  
as a patron of the arts, a great admirer of your work,  
and I’ll give you that little push out the door, for it seems  
I’ve already brought you to the threshold.” 

 

What stirred Fëanáro’s mind, then, none may know, I least  
of all, who never saw so clearly into him as our mother, or you,  
fellow brothers, who were hotter of heart. He fell silent  
before the tempter, whose cunning words so recklessly  
mapped a world. So Melkor – who can smell uncertainty  
like smoke on the wind, delicious as the rising ash  
of burnt offerings – curled the lips of his mask. He issued  
the fated challenge. 

 

“If indeed you are as bold as were your words, upon  
your sortie from Tirion, then you would heed me, lord.  
They have not the right to hem you in, those figureheads who  
figure themselves authorities, proclaiming from lofty thrones.  
Heed me, not for yourself, for your seven strapping scions,  
but for the fruits of your heart, the sacred Silmarilli. Think not  
that they lie safely within the bounds of the fair land, for the Valar  
watch in secret, and ever have they feared you, and begrudged  
your prowess, your mastery of the craft. Deep as  
your treasuries lie, their sight pierces all. Who may know  
what they devise, aloof of your father’s people? Mark me, Noldo.  
The day will come when they claim them for their own.” 

 

Then like hammerstrike, like thunder on the mountains,  
the brief bewitching ceased, our father’s eyes flashing, as he  
forgot all fear. With this last lie the fiend had nicked  
a nerve too deep. For away fell the fine raiment,  
the countenance young and fair, and there stood a being  
all of vacuum, a dark fell shape, and radiant with greed,  
crowned with flame and shadow. Fëanáro saw,  
and arose in wrath, so awfully the enemy himself now  
shrunk away, shielding his tattered cloak from  
the pure-burning spirit, so was he caught unawares  
in his foul disguise. “So you would deceive me, and turn me  
from my gods. I grieve that chaos is planted so easily  
in the hearts of Tirion, yet mark _me_ , villain, that the world  
may break, the skies shatter above us, and never will I relinquish  
the Silmarils, for first would I give my life, and all  
my seven sons” – so he dooms us, one of many dooms  
to follow, all in a row, like birds plucked out of  
the sky, doomed to hunt, and be hunted by doom. No matter.  
Our father spat on the silken slippers of the deceiver. “Get thee  
far from my home, you sunken convict of the gods. I will not  
ask again.” 

 

So did the fiend depart; so were our days of peace numbered.


End file.
